M
Motaz Alqaoud.
AI ENGINEER · HEALTHCARE
Contact
Senior AI/ML Engineer · Abbott

AI, engineered
for healthcare.

I build artificial intelligence that reaches the people it's meant to help. My mission is to close the gap between what AI can do in research and what actually improves patient care — turning models into systems that clinicians trust and patients benefit from.

My vision

Care first. Technology in service of it.

The most capable model in the world means nothing if it never reaches a patient. I work where engineering meets medicine — making sure powerful AI becomes real, safe, trusted care.

// the mission

Close the research-to-practice gap

So much medical AI stalls in papers and prototypes. I focus on the harder, more valuable work: turning it into systems clinicians can actually use and rely on.

// the patient

People before parameters

Every design decision traces back to a real person waiting for an answer. Safety, clarity, and trust come before novelty.

// the discipline

Built for the real world

Regulatory awareness, clinical constraints, and validation aren't afterthoughts — I design with them in mind from the first line of code.

// the foundation

Engineering into medicine

A biomedical engineering background across three degrees lets me carry an idea from research concept to a working, dependable system.

Ph.D.
Biomedical Eng.
Abbott
Senior AI/ML Engineer
7+
Years in medical AI
15+
AI/ML certifications
Selected work

Projects

Open-source work spanning the AI stack — from deployed models to systems in active development. Each is a standalone repository.

See all repositories on GitHub →
Disciplines & skills

Crafts

The techniques I reach for, where each earns its place in a clinical system, and the full toolset behind them.

Surgical Navigation

Intraoperative guidance with MRI-to-ultrasound registration and biomechanical modeling — built for real OR workflows.

Medical Imaging & Deep Learning

Segmentation, registration, and 3D pipelines across MRI, CT, and ultrasound.

RAG & LLM Agents

Retrieval systems and multi-agent orchestration for clinical knowledge and decision support.

GNNs & Physics-Informed AI

Graph learning constrained by physical law — anatomy and tissue modeled as structure, not flat features.

Simulation & FEA

Finite element tissue deformation for surgical planning and physics-based synthetic data.

Classical ML, RL & MLOps

Production pipelines, reinforcement learning for sequential decisions, and FDA-regulated deployment.

NLP & Signal Processing

Clinical NLP for EHR text and biosignal processing for medical-device data.

Medical Device Regulation

FDA SaMD pathways, 510(k)/PMA awareness, and clinical validation for AI-enabled devices.

Tools & technical skills

AI / ML
PythonPyTorchTensorFlowCNNsGNNsRNNsReinforcement LearningGenerative AILLM & Agentic AINLPHPCCUDA
MLOps & Cloud
DevOps / DataOps / MLOpsAzure MLAzure DatabricksAWS Data EngineeringDocker
Medical Imaging
SegmentationRegistrationDICOMNIfTIMINCMRI3D Ultrasound3D SlicerITK/VTKPLUS Toolkit
Simulation & CAD
AbaqusANSYSFEADigital TwinsSolidWorksCGALBlenderMeshLabPatient-Specific Meshing3D Printing
Image-Guided Surgery
Surgical PlanningSurgical TrackingImage-Guided TherapySoft-Tissue Modeling
Methods & Dev
MS Visual StudioCMakeDOEANOVAMinitabLabVIEW
Regulatory & Compliance
FDA SubmissionsSaMDBiocompatibilityEU MDR/IVDRClinical ValidationAI in MedTech
Collaboration & Productivity
Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPointVisioEndNoteTeamsSharePointSlackGoogle Workspace

Certifications & continuing education

Ongoing coursework to stay current across the fast-moving parts of the AI stack — from agentic systems to cloud MLOps.

University of Alberta & Amii · Coursera

Reinforcement Learning Specialization

Four-course sequence: Fundamentals of RL, Sample-based Learning Methods, Prediction & Control with Function Approximation, and a capstone building a complete RL system.

DeepLearning.AI

AI for Medical Diagnosis

Built CNN models for image classification and segmentation to diagnose lung and brain disorders from medical scans.

DeepLearning.AI

TensorFlow Developer Professional Certificate

Introduction to TensorFlow, CNNs in TensorFlow, and NLP in TensorFlow — building scalable models for image and text data.

IBM

Develop Generative AI Applications: Get Started

Foundations of building applications on top of generative AI models.

Microsoft

AI Agent Fundamentals with Azure AI Foundry

Designing and deploying autonomous AI agents on Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry platform.

Microsoft

Foundations of AI & ML · Azure ML Pipelines · Azure Databricks

End-to-end model pipelines and data science workflows on Azure's cloud ML stack.

Duke University

DevOps, DataOps, MLOps

Production practices for shipping and maintaining ML systems reliably at scale.

Whizlabs

Data Engineering in AWS

Data gathering, missing-data handling, feature extraction and selection using PCA and variance thresholds.

Packt

Advanced Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Deeper architectures and training techniques beyond introductory ML.

University of Michigan · 28DIGITAL

Digital Twins · Mastering Digital Twins

Building virtual representations of physical systems for simulation-driven design and monitoring.

Coursera

Innovate with ANSYS Simulation Tools

Applied simulation workflows using the ANSYS platform.

O.P. Jindal Global University

Machine Learning

Core ML theory and applied methods.

Conferences & professional events

Academic conferences from my Ph.D. research — each resulting in a peer-reviewed publication — alongside recent industry events tracking where AI, simulation, and medical-device regulation are heading.

Academic — Ph.D. research (all resulted in a publication)

Jul 2022

IEEE EMBC — 44th Annual Intl. Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society

Glasgow, Scotland. Presented nnU-Net-based multi-modality breast MRI segmentation research.

Jul 2022

ANNSIM — Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference

San Diego, CA. Presented preoperative planning work for robotic breast surgery navigation. Best Paper, Medical Track.

May 2023

ANNSIM — Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Presented controlled-resolution breast meshing for FE-based surgical simulation.

May 2025

ANNSIM — Annual Modeling and Simulation Conference

Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Presented a deep-learning framework for breast cancer surgical navigation with intra-operative imaging.

Industry & professional development

Feb 2026

World Agentic AI Summit — Luxatia International

Berlin, Germany. Two-day executive summit on autonomous AI systems, multi-agent architectures, and enterprise AI governance.

May 2026

Simulation World Central — ANSYS

Minneapolis, MN. Industry event on advanced simulation across healthcare, automotive, and aerospace applications.

Jun 2026

RAPS Twin Cities — MN Medical Devices Essentials

Medtronic Headquarters, Minneapolis, MN. Full-day regulatory symposium covering FDA submissions, biocompatibility, AI in MedTech, and EU MDR/IVDR.

Oct 2026

Current Applications and Future of AI in Cardiology — Mayo Clinic

Napa, CA. CME course covering generative AI, predictive modeling, and clinical decision support in cardiology — imaging, NLP, model development, and regulatory pathways for clinical AI.

Who I am

Background

Motaz Alqaoud
AI/ML Engineer · Biomedical Engineering PhD

I'm a biomedical engineer with a Ph.D. and a Senior AI/ML Engineer at Abbott, specializing in AI and machine learning for medical imaging and healthcare.

My doctoral research built a real-time, image-guided navigation system for breast cancer care, integrating deep learning, patient-specific modeling, and biomechanical simulation into one framework — from diagnosis through treatment planning, in collaboration with clinical teams.

My path spans three degrees earned across Cairo, Connecticut, and Virginia — and work across medical imaging, biomechanics, bioelectric engineering, and drug delivery. That breadth is what lets me translate research into clinical practice rather than leaving it in a paper.

Today I'm a Senior AI/ML Engineer at Abbott, applying that foundation to build AI that supports real patient care.

NOW

Senior AI/ML Engineer · Abbott

Building applied AI and machine learning for healthcare.

2020–24

Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering

Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA. Dissertation on real-time navigation for breast cancer surgery using neural networks. Advisor: Michel Audette, Ph.D.

2019

M.S., Biomedical Engineering

University of New Haven, West Haven, CT.

2014

B.E., Biomedical & Systems Engineering

Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.

Research

Publications

Peer-reviewed conference work in medical imaging, breast MRI segmentation, and finite-element surgical simulation.

IEEE EMBC 2022

nnU-Net-based Multi-modality Breast MRI Segmentation and Tissue-Delineating Phantom for Robotic Tumor Surgery Planning

M. Alqaoud, J. Plemmons, E. Feliberti, S. Dong, K. Kaipa, G. Fichtinger, Y. Xiao, M. A. Audette

TLDR: A deep-learning pipeline segmenting multi-modality breast MRI with nnU-Net, paired with a tissue-delineating phantom, to support planning for robotic tumor surgery.

nnU-NetBreast MRISegmentation44th Intl. Conf. IEEE EMBS
ANNSIM 2022

Multi-Modality Breast MRI Segmentation Using nnU-Net for Preoperative Planning of Robotic Surgery Navigation

M. Alqaoud, J. Plemmons, E. Feliberti, K. Kaipa, S. Dong, G. Fichtinger, Y. Xiao, M. A. Audette

TLDR: Extends multi-modality breast MRI segmentation to preoperative planning for robotic surgical navigation. Best Paper, Medical Track.

Preoperative PlanningRobotic NavigationAnnual Modeling & Simulation Conf.
ANNSIM 2023

Multi-Material, Approach-Guided, Controlled-Resolution Breast Meshing for FE-Based Interactive Surgery Simulation

M. Alqaoud, J. Plemmons, E. Feliberti, K. Kaipa, G. Fichtinger, Y. Xiao, T. Rashid, M. A. Audette

TLDR: A controlled-resolution, multi-material breast meshing method enabling finite-element-based interactive surgical simulation guided by the surgical approach.

FEAMesh GenerationSurgery Simulation
ANNSIM 2025

Simulation of Breast Deformation Due to US Probe

M. Alqaoud, M. A. Audette, et al.

TLDR: A biomechanical simulation modeling breast tissue deformation caused by ultrasound probe pressure — improving the accuracy of MRI-to-ultrasound registration for surgical navigation. Presented at ANNSIM 2025, Madrid, Spain.

Biomechanical SimulationFEAUltrasound
Ph.D. Dissertation · ODU 2024

Real-Time Navigation System for Breast Cancer Surgery with Pre- and Intra-Operative Imaging Using Neural Networks

Motaz Alqaoud · Old Dominion University

TLDR: The full doctoral dissertation — an end-to-end AI-driven navigation system integrating deep learning, patient-specific modeling, and biomechanical simulation for breast cancer surgery, achieving 4.6 mm tumor localization.

DissertationSurgical NavigationDeep LearningFEA

Get in touch.

Always glad to connect with people working on AI in healthcare, research collaborators, and anyone curious about the work. Reach out anytime.